Military Equipment Sperging Thread - The Tiger II is a better tank than the M1 Abrams edition

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Sleazy Car Salesman said:
Honestly the Gripen should have a bright future as the 21st century Freedom Fighter, but the Swedes aren't particularly good at marketing. There's a ton of South American, Oceanic, and African nations that would have a good use for the Gripen.
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Lockmart also has the best bribers in the business as well. That's their ace in the hole to deal with.
 
The Grognard said:
Lockmart also has the best bribers in the business as well. That's their ace in the hole to deal with.
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Maybe this would have been the conversation to have if work had begun 5-7 years ago on making a Gripen at or below an $80m price point and was wrapping up now with enough interest to eventually push that even lower.

It doesn't take bribes to realize that comparing the very best Gripen deals in history to current lots of F-35A is leaving you with a similar price-per-plane for an objectively less capable aircraft. Lockheed Martin didn't do that through pure kike games, the timing of Gripen being iced out by the end of the cold war, which you yourself mention, was also required. But maybe part of it was also SAAB and the Finnish govt not reading the writing on the wall and accepting that Gripen E/F was never going to get much play by trying to have one foot in both the high end and low end markets; larger militaries under larger economies were not interested in committing to a lower standard of technology at a similar price-point, and the truly desperate MiG-and-Su-replacers were always able to look at F-16s with similar costs to operate, endless economics behind them, and potentially at $15m cheaper per than the cheapest Gripens in history.
 
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VF-1J Armored Valkyrie said:
It doesn't take bribes to realize that comparing the very best Gripen deals in history to current lots of F-35A are leaving you with a similar price-per-plane for an objectively less capable aircraft. Lockheed Martin didn't do that through pure kike games, the timing of Gripen being iced out by the end of the cold war, which you yourself mention, was also required. But maybe part of it was also SAAB and the Finnish govt not reading the writing on the wall and accepting that Gripen E/F was never going to get much play by trying to have one foot in both the high end and low end markets; larger militaries under larger economies were not interested in committing to a lower standard of technology at a similar price-point, and the truly desperate MiG-and-Su-replacers were always able to look at F-16s with similar costs to operate and potentially $15m cheaper per than the cheapest Gripens in history.
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The most ancient and unassailable nemesis of the non-combloc European: Economy of Scale.
 
VF-1J Armored Valkyrie said:
Is there still a plan and/or timetable for the drone catapults? IMO the biggest single thing holding the QEs back is a lack of fixed wing AEWC, having those catapults and a dedicated MALE/HALE drone for early warning would be massive.
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Nothing specific on catapults, but the plan is for the first jet powered drone to be tested on a carrier either late this year or early next year, so it can't be too far off. According to the 2025 Strategic Defence Review they're also aiming further, in addition to drone airwings they're also looking at adding some sort of ability to launch missiles off the deck and also "expendable single use drones".

Capabilities​


The Royal Navy must continue to move towards a more powerful but cheaper and simpler fleet, developing a ‘high-low’ mix of equipment and weapons that exploits autonomy and digital integration. Carrier strike is already at the cutting-edge of NATO capability but much more rapid progress is needed in its evolution into ‘hybrid’ carrier airwings, whereby crewed combat aircraft (F-35B) are complemented by autonomous collaborative platforms in the air, and expendable, single-use drones. Plans for the hybrid carrier airwings should also include long-range precision missiles capable of being fired from the carrier deck.
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I'm assuming here they're looking at something like the many containerized missile options out there, plus one of the "we have Shahed at home" knockoffs the West is working on, and honestly I don't hate either option.
 
East_Clintwood said:
I'm assuming here they're looking at something like the many containerized missile options out there, plus one of the "we have Shahed at home" knockoffs the West is working on, and honestly I don't hate either option.
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Containerized weapons and drone aviation out of existing hangars is something I think we should all keep a close eye on. Pretty much any exsiting helicopter deck and hangar could launch and recover some drones. A real flat top with below-deck hangars and well-designed elevators opens up some pretty wild possibilities. The insistence that cheap drones will kill carriers may be tempered by the ability to use carriers as moving platforms to launch a fuckload of cheap drones from.

And even as we speak:
 
VF-1J Armored Valkyrie said:
Containerized weapons and drone aviation out of existing hangars is something I think we should all keep a close eye on. Pretty much any exsiting helicopter deck and hangar could launch and recover some drones. A real flat top with below-deck hangars and well-designed elevators opens up some pretty wild possibilities. The insistence that cheap drones will kill carriers may be tempered by the ability to use carriers as moving platforms to launch a fuckload of cheap drones from.
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The biggest issue with small, cheap, drones like this in naval warfare is going to be range. By the time you get a drone with missile like range you've basically just created a Sparrow or a Tomahawk anyways.

Actually that's a great question: what is the practical difference between a long range suicide drone and a cruise missile?
 
Sleazy Car Salesman said:
Actually that's a great question: what is the practical difference between a long range suicide drone and a cruise missile?
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To me it doesn't seem like there is a good hard definition. Maybe that's what we're calling long range turboprop weapons. Maybe there is an arbitrary cost-per-unit. Nobody seems to agree on it.
 
VF-1J Armored Valkyrie said:
To me it doesn't seem like there is a good hard definition. Maybe that's what we're calling long range turboprop weapons. Maybe there is an arbitrary cost-per-unit. Nobody seems to agree on it.
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Exactly, and I think that's a serious issue since it's just going to lead to parallel competing developments to technology we already have in pursuit of newness for it's own sake. Realistically an autonomous drone is just a cruise missile or a loitering munition, which are already both extant and mature technologies.
 
Sleazy Car Salesman said:
Exactly, and I think that's a serious issue since it's just going to lead to parallel competing developments to technology we already have in pursuit of newness for it's own sake. Realistically an autonomous drone is just a cruise missile or a loitering munition, which are already both extant and mature technologies.
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This part here is probably just my speculation, but within the US military itself, I think there's a slightly different mentality than what is taking over the industrial side. From where I sit, the US military sees missiles as purely destructive, and when a design is also used for wider non-destructive purposes, it becomes a drone to them. Stuff like Wolf Pack and MALD are drones, even if some variants do explode and destroy stuff. And likewise, you look at something like the CHAMP EMP missiles or BLU-114/B with it's carbon film strips, that may be an alternatuve effect to reduce collateral damage, but the purpose is still purely to do permanent damage to electrical components. Stuff like Switchblade and Harpy or even an FPV drone don't just explode, they also have a secondary surveillance/reconnaisance function even as they're on their way to just explode.

By that rubrick, a lot of one-way attack drones wouldn't really be drones at all, just a new breed of bargain-bin cruise missiles. But to me, this seems like the best and most concrete definition I've seen. Does it just destroy things, or can it do other shit too? The industry clearly doesn't see it that way, they'll tack 'drone' onto anything now.
 
Sleazy Car Salesman said:
Exactly, and I think that's a serious issue since it's just going to lead to parallel competing developments to technology we already have in pursuit of newness for it's own sake. Realistically an autonomous drone is just a cruise missile or a loitering munition, which are already both extant and mature technologies.
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Tomahawk costs $4000k
Prop Geran/Shahed costs $50k
Jet Geran/Shaded costs $1500k

The qualitative difference is that cruise missiles are quality, while "drones" are quantity — precision strikes vs. saturation.
 
polakrobak99 said:
Tomahawk costs $4000k
Prop Geran/Shahed costs $50k
Jet Geran/Shaded costs $1500k

The qualitative difference is that cruise missiles are quality, while "drones" are quantity — precision strikes vs. saturation.
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Even that is becoming fuzzy. Anduril's Barracuda-500 missile comes in at around $400k a pop, but it apes a lesser version of the autonomous target descrimination that is onboard LRASMs at $3.25M each. For the price of one LRASM, you can have several Barracuda-500s all discriminating targets using IIR and directing each other autonomously.

Does that make it a drone? Maybe it makes it like 'drones' in some ways, but that's also still clearly a cruise missile to me.
 
VF-1J Armored Valkyrie said:
Even that is becoming fuzzy. Anduril's Barracuda-500 missile comes in at around $400k a pop, but it apes a lesser version of the autonomous target descrimination that is onboard LRASMs at $3.25M each. For the price of one LRASM, you can have several Barracuda-500s all discriminating targets using IIR and directing each other autonomously.

Does that make it a drone? Maybe it makes it like 'drones' in some ways, but that's also still clearly a cruise missile to me.
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Fundamentally, if you send 1-2 missiles per target, it's a classic missile. If you send 4-6+ and half of them are decoys, that's a drone.
 
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